


Tie Me Down

by pikasafire



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 15:47:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikasafire/pseuds/pikasafire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe it’s more like falling than floating. He knows he’s going to hit the bottom. He just doesn’t care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tie Me Down

**Author's Note:**

> **MAJOR WARNINGS** : Depression. Alcohol abuse.
> 
> For [](http://accrues.livejournal.com/profile)[**accrues**](http://accrues.livejournal.com/) [prompt in my NaNo post](http://pikasafire.livejournal.com/89544.html) “Mikey/Frank, ties.” Almost definitely not what you were probably thinking when you prompted this! Sorry! Hope you like it anyway! Set circa 2004.

*

  
It’s that weird feeling of just not giving a fuck to the point where he feels like he could float away. It’s not weightless; not like he hasn’t a care in the world, y’know, the way they describe it in those bullshit country music songs. But, more like he’s surrounded by problems, he’s in the middle of a sea of shit, and he’s floating above it all. Can’t bring himself to care about the fact he’s going to fly away into space.

It’s an all consuming apathy and it’s more terrifying than anything else he’s felt before.

Maybe it’s more like falling than floating. And he knows he’s going to hit the bottom. He just doesn’t care.

“Mikey. Hey, Mikey!”

Mikey blinks, feeling a little like he’s been pulled out of a wad of cotton wool. “What?”

Frank stares at him, irritation warring with concern. “I’ve been calling you for, like, five minutes, man. What the fuck?”

“Sorry. It’s nothing.” Mikey says. It’s almost a mantra these days. “What did you want?”

For a moment, it looks like Frank’ll drop it, ask Mikey the question he wants and then walk away, feeling unsettled, but not enough to do anything about it. Mikey knows how this goes. Instead, Frank frowns, “... You alright, man? You’ve been a bit-” He struggles with the words, waves a hand vaguely, “-Off, recently.”

“It’s nothing.” Mikey shrugs, practiced casual, “Just tired, y’know?”

*

Mikey gets wasted after the show. It’s one of those things, where it’s happening more and more often, and he recognises the warning signs, he knows he should probably tell someone, he probably needs help. He just can’t quite bring himself to care enough to do anything but open another beer, smoke another joint and sit quietly in the corner, listening to the poisonous voices in his head.

It’s been long enough that he knows how this goes and he’s not sure why he keeps raising that bottle to his mouth; with each mouthful, the weight on his chest gets heavier, the voices get louder and apathy is very briefly replaced with aching self-hatred.

It’s better than feeling nothing. Until it’s not.

“Fucking hell, Mikey.” Frank says.

Mikey can’t see Frank’s face, too busy puking his guts up onto the asphalt next to the bus, hunched over on his knees, an unsteady hand clutching the bus tyre to keep him upright.

“I’m floating,” he gasps when he’s done, though he feels like his chest is being crushed, the air squeezed out of his lungs by the overwhelming feeling of _terriblehorriblefuckinguseless_ “Or drowning.” He laughs a little, breathless and desperate and Mikey can’t actually locate any feelings in his body at all; they’re like a cloud, an _aura_ of self-hatred now, around him like a halo, he’s fucking angelic, and isn’t around him better than in him? He must be speaking at least some of this out-loud because Frank’s pushing Mikey’s hair back from his sweaty forehead with clumsy hands, frowning in concern.

“You okay?”

Mikey’s laughing or crying. He’s not sure which. “Yeah. Fuckin’ awesome, can’t you see?”

Frank’s unsteady on his feet as he reaches down to pull at Mikey’s hands, “C’mon, man. Let’s go somewhere.” And Mikey lets him because where else is he going to go?

“Don’t stand too close.” Mikey warns after a few minutes. He doesn’t want Frank to catch the feeling from him if it’s floating about free-range.

Frank laughs, that high pitched giggle of his that always sounds faintly maniacal, “You always smell bad, Mikey. I’m kinda used to it.”

“Oh.” Mikey doesn’t quite know what to say to that. “I meant the-” he waves his hand about, “the aura.”

“I was kidding,” Frank nudges him with his shoulder, both of them unsteady enough on alcohol soaked legs that they almost tumble. He laughs again, staggering into a flower bed. “Whoops. What aura?”

“‘M tired.” Mikey says, even though they’ve only walked a few hundred feet, “Can we sit?” The garden bed doesn’t look like a bad place to sleep. The flowers will probably smell good, and Mikey kind of likes the idea of sitting on plants. “Move over.” He steps carefully over the concrete skirting, lets himself flop into the greenery.

“What aura?” Frank asks, laying down next to him.

Mikey shrugs, he doesn’t really want to talk about it now, “The bad one. Y’know. It’s not in me anymore, I drank it. It’s allergic to alcohol.” He just feels so fucking incompetent. “I can’t even stop drinking,” he says, half slurred, murmured words and he can feel the tears pressing against the back of his eyelids, can’t be bothered summoning the energy to keep them in. His nose is running, face wet and he’s pretty sure he’s got mud on his face. “I can’t do anything right.”

“Sure you can.” Frank says earnestly. “You play in a fuckin’ band. We’re awesome.”

“I’m falling.” Mikey tells him, pushing himself upright on unsteady hands. It makes his stomach lurch unpleasantly, “I’m falling. Or flying. And I’m going to hit the bottom.” He lets himself fall back, is dimly aware of the crack of his skull on the concrete edge of the flower bed. “Ow.”

“Fuck. You alright?”

The laughter wells in his stomach and Mikey can feel the weird spacey throb in the back of his head. “‘m good.” he says, drunk and dizzy, bubbly laughter held in until Mikey’s pretty sure that maybe it’s vomit instead. He swallows compulsively until he’s at least sixty percent sure he’s not going to puke. “You gonna let me float away, Frank?”

“Nah, Mikes.” Frank crawls over the flowers between them, shifts so he’s laying next to Mikey, surrounded by crushed petunias. He fumbles with his tie. “I won’t let you float away. Y’know why?”

“Why?”

Frank struggles with his collar. “Wait. Sit up.”

It takes more than a few minutes for both of them to struggle into sitting positions, listing a little as Frank pulls the skinny tie from around his neck. “See this, right?”

“Yeah.”

Frank ties it carefully around Mikey’s wrist with alcohol clumsy fingers, “Hang on, now tie the other end around my wrist.” He waits for Mikey to tie a loose knot. “You can’t float away now. Because I’ve got you, see. You’re like my own like Mikey-kite.” He laughs, “You can’t float away!”

Mikey thinks about this for a moment, “What if I’m falling instead.”

“Then it’s like a climbing rope or something.” Frank says, tugging at the tie as though that’ll make his point, “Like, y’know, when those people go rock-climbing in those harness things and someone at the bottom holds the rope to, I don’t know, anchor them if they fall or whatever.”

“I don’t know.” Mikey says skeptically. It doesn’t make much sense to him. “You weigh, like, five pounds. We can never go rock climbing. I’d fall of and you’d fuckin’, like, rocket up into the air like in one of those cartoons.”

Frank laughs “I dunno, man. Is there a, like, an anchor or something in climbing? That’s not a person?”

Mikey shrugs, closes his eyes. “I dunno. ‘M tired.”

“We can sleep here.” Frank decides, “Because you won’t float away.”

It makes sense in Mikey’s alcohol soaked brain, the strangely secure feeling of cheap polyester around his wrist and maybe it’s going to mean fuck all tomorrow, but it’s enough for tonight.

 

*

END  



End file.
